This problem is caused by a prior coding decision. We decided to use coded captions and hints. For example, if the control was named opm_Edit_pedit_netprice, the caption actually contained only the "opm_Edit_pedit_netprice" string, and the Hint property was set to "opm_Edit_pedit_netpriceTip". This allowed us to set the string to whatever we liked and allowed us to decide the proper naming (the tagging) after we write the code.

The problem is that, because "opm_Edit_pedit_netprice" is too cryptic we needed to include the English translation in each language file. So, if the English caption was "Net price", in the Spanish, Russian, Italian, etc. language files we should add "Net price" too, or the translator (and reviewers) would not know what "opm_Edit_pedit_netprice" means. To mark the string as untranslated we added the asterisk. (In a normal situation [without using coded names], the poEdit editor would mark those strings as unstranslated.

What we should do is to convert all coded captions and hints to the normal English string. And then convert all .po files.